West Cole Creek, Eastern Beartooths

Another classic mid winter snowpack was observed by Level 1 students this weekend on the eastern Beartooth front. Prolonged stretches in December and January have promoted depth hoar development in the basal structure of the snowpack that is found at most above' elevations and aspects (N,E & W) we traveled through. The new load of snow in the last week ~24" has added instability to areas with depth hoar; we also observed minor a few shooting cracks and collapsing snow. ECTs has propagation at the new/old snow interface (ECTP27), as well as at the bottom of the snowpack (~140cm down). Our layer of concern is the basal facets as those seem to be the most reactive PWL on a variety of aspects.